Cape Chamber’s Implied Commentary and Summary on the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement 2023

To make for easier reading, the structure of the document is based on the up-front stated four key objectives of the Medium Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS).

This also allows for the stated MTBPS initiatives to be measured against the four key objectives, starting with the reconfiguration of the state, as this is the most difficult objective to achieve, with just about everything else dependent on the success of this objective.

Implicitly, that also traces the causes of and mooted possible solutions in the 2023 MTBPS to the current fiscal and socio-economic stresses more closely. The MTBPS aims to address four key objectives, acknowledging the hard work required to deal with what it terms as pressing challenges.

• Reconfiguring the state for greater efficiency with zero tolerance for waste and corruption.
• Protecting vulnerable households
• Stabilising debt and debt service costs via fiscal consolidation.
• Strengthening jobs-rich and tax revenue enhancing economic growth.

It further notes that government spending per person in real terms has grown from R27 629 in 2008/09 to R33 390 in 2022/23, and in overall annual nominal government spending terms rising over the same period from Rb713 to Rb2100, with little impact on economic growth.
 

Read the full summary here.